'We did this for a good purpose:' Dad arrested in Norridge for placing son in car trunk defends 'experiment'

Boguslaw Matlak

Boguslaw Matlak, left, with Laura Quijano and their 3-year-old son. Matlak was charged with child endangerment after placing his child in the trunk of his car as part of a videotaped "social experiment" to see if passersby would try to help the boy.

Boguslaw Matlak, left, with Laura Quijano and their 3-year-old son. Matlak was charged with child endangerment after placing his child in the trunk of his car as part of a videotaped "social experiment" to see if passersby would try to help the boy. (Boguslaw Matlak)

Boguslaw Matlak insists he wasn’t hurting his 3-year-old son when he put him in the trunk of his car on a hot afternoon in Norridge earlier this month.

The 28-year-old Chicago father says he was conducting a controlled experiment to see if people pay attention and are willing to step in when a child appears to be a dangerous situation.

“It was to show people to be aware,” Matlak said nearly three weeks after his arrest on a misdemeanor child endangerment charge. “People don’t care. It’s not right. People should pay attention to their surroundings.”

It also resulted in Matlak and the child’s mother, Laura Quijano, temporarily losing custody of their son, something both say is unwarranted.

The events that unfolded on the afternoon of Sept. 2 began with an idea Matlak says he had about two weeks earlier. He said was leaving a store when he saw a couple inside a parked car, smoking cigarettes in front of a child who appeared to be about 7 or 8 years old. The scene bothered Matlak, he said, because the child was exposed to the second-hand smoke and could not do anything about it.

The idea of staging a situation in which the public reasonably should spring into action to protect a child began to form, Matlak said. He decided to videotape the scenario and put it online.

The experiment, Matlak said, was “just to send awareness to other people to get involved. When people see something wrong, they won’t get involved. And when it comes down to kids, it’s everybody’s business to get involved.”

So on Sept. 2, Matlak headed out with his son, along with Quijano and a friend, Nicholas Johnson, to stage the scene, he said. His son would appear to be inside the locked trunk of his car, but the rear seat had been pushed down so the child could crawl out of the trunk and to his mother, who was in the back seat, Matlak said.

They recorded the scenario outside a few public places in the area of Norridge and the far Northwest Side of Chicago, he said. For the most part, there was little response from the public, outside of one person calling a store security guard, Johnson said.

Then the group headed to Panera Bread, 4244 N. Harlem Ave. in Norridge.

According to a Norridge police report, three women contacted authorities after they saw a man place a small child into the trunk of a gray Audi parked in the fire lane outside the restaurant. The witnesses reported that the man told the child he was being punished and, after closing the trunk, he drove away.

“They related that they were alarmed and disturbed that anyone could do something like that to a small child, especially on a very hot day like it was,” the police report says.

The temperature, according to the report, was 89 degrees.

According to police, a license plate number of the car was obtained and, less than hour later, it was seen back in the parking lot near the Panera Bread entrance. The witnesses pointed out the man they had seen, whom police identified as Matlak.

The car did not have a child safety seat inside, police said. Matlak reportedly told police that after leaving the restaurant he had taken his son home and left the child seat with the boy’s mother.

Matlak says he came back to Panera to explain to authorities what he had done. His friend, Johnson, made a similar statement.

“We expected people to understand what we did, but there was the police and then the arrest,” Johnson said. “I was kind of shocked, like, ‘Why did this happen?’ ”

But Norridge police, in their report, say it was the child’s mother who initially told the officer that the incident was “part of a social experiment” that was being recorded. Matlak, they say, said he came back to the parking lot because he was “hungry.”

He later described for police how his son was able to crawl from the trunk to the back seat of the car.

With the three witnesses wanting to sign complaints, Matlak was arrested, handcuffed and taken to the police station, police said.

Police noted that his son “appeared to be fine and unharmed.”

Matlak says if the officers had watched the video of his experiment, they would understand that his son wasn’t harmed and that it was an “illusion” that the boy was locked inside the truck, as he was really safe in the back seat.

“I want people to know we did this for a good purpose,” he said. “It wasn’t a joke; no one was laughing.”

Norridge Police Chief David Disselhorst said he is unaware if the arresting officers viewed the recording, but said charges were filed against Matlak because the responding officers had enough probable cause to believe a crime had been committed.

“I think our guys did the right thing in terms of charging him,” Disselhorst said. “We’re always going to lean on what’s in the best interest of the child. Anybody who would put their kid in the trunk of a car, even as a joke, is going to have some explaining to do.”

Matlak is expected to appear in Cook County Circuit Court in Rolling Meadows on Sept. 28 to answer to the child endangerment charge.

Police also contacted the Department of Children and Family Services, the police report states. Matlak and Quijano, who was not charged by police, said their son was subsequently removed from their home and placed in the care of a relative. They can visit the boy, they said, but he is not allowed to live in their home while an investigation takes place.

It is the length of the investigation that has frustrated the couple, they say.

“I understand the reason why DCFS got involved, but we’ve been cooperating and giving them all the information they need,” Quijano said. “I thought they would take a couple days to get all the information they needed to see that we made a mistake and my child was never at risk, never in danger.”

But three weeks on, Quijano said her son still has not been allowed to return home.

“My child wants to come home,” she said. “We are all he knows. He is going through emotional distress at this moment. His school is saying he is having behavioral issues.”

A spokesman for DCFS said on Sept. 21 that the department’s investigation was still pending.

Pierina Infelise, the attorney representing the couple in the DCFS investigation, said she agrees the department should have been contacted to review this particular case, but disagrees with the length of time it has taken.

“There are severe problems with the way common sense and discretion are not being used,” she said.

Matlak and Quijano were also asked by an investigator to perform a “re-enactment” of their so-called “experiment,” Infelise said.

“If they are saying this was abuse or neglect, then why have them re-enact it with the actual child?” she asked.

Infelise says the case bears similarities to the recent case of Wilmette mother Corey Widen who was investigated by DCFS for possible neglect after she says she allowed her 8-year-old daughter to walk the family dog alone.

“We’re talking about people’s children. We’re talking about families being separated,” she said. “There’s almost a disregard for the urgency that comes with that.”

Disselhorst said police were required to contact DCFS due to the charges that had been filed against Matlak.

“We are mandated reporters,” he said. “Any time we believe a case of abuse is involved, we are required to contact DCFS so they can conduct an investigation. Our investigation deals with the criminal side; theirs will include if the child is in the safest place possible.”

For Matlak and Quijano, that place is at home with them, they say.

“We’re good parents,” Quijano said. “If they ask anyone who knows us, they will say the truth, which is that we love our son and we’ll doe anything for him.”

In speaking to the Chicago Tribune regarding the Widen case, DCFS spokesman Neil Skene said the department investigates all complaints “because you just don’t know.”

“You also don’t want to say (to the public), ‘Don’t call us unless it’s serious,’ ” he said. “There are all these other cases where we say, ‘if only someone had called us.’ ”

Matlak says the experiment involving his son is the first time he has done anything of this kind. He denies he did it for “fame,” as he says some believe, and acknowledges now that had he known he would be arrested and his son taken away, he would not have staged the stunt.

“The whole reason was for a good purpose, but now it seems like I’m a very bad guy,” Matlak said.

“Looking back at it, we should have done things a little differently,” Quijano added. “We probably should have contacted the police beforehand to tell them we were doing this experiment. But I strongly feel — and I know — my son was not at risk.”

“I love my son more than own life,” she added. “I need him to be home with me.”